Uprising in the Villages: the French Folktale as a Form of Resistance

Abstract

The article analyzes and discusses the French folktale as an instrument of literary representation and critical awareness of the popular classes. As a literary form whose origin dates back to the tradition of the short forms, the french folktale is a very important object for thinking about popular culture in early modern Europe. These narratives highlight the country people’s conscience about the harsh reality that surrounded them, and provided strategies to resist to it. At a time when starvation and disease ravaged the continent, the stories told by peasants served not only as entertainment, but raised important questions about life in the fiefs, which, in the course of time, would help to form the critical spirit of these populations. For the french people, the folktales informed about the world and provided means to face it. The objective of this article is to carry out the discussion based on Darton’s (2014) writtings about french folktales, having in perspective the concept of resistance inherent to the narrative presented by Alfredo Bosi (1996) and Burke’s (2010) theorization about the Discovery of the people and oral culture. For this purpose, the tales Little thumb (PERRAULT, 2010), Jean de l’ours (anonymous) and L’enfant perdu (DELAURE, 1956) will be analyzed.